THE FAMILIES OF LANGUAGES.
“Facies non omnibus una,
Nec diversa tamen, quales decet esse sororum.”--VIRG.
It has been considered by many that language has passed through
four[236] stages. 1. A period in which words succeed each other in
the natural order of the thought, with nothing except this order
to express their mutual relation, and with few or no inflections,
as in Chinese. 2. A period of agglutination in which the smaller
words to express relation have assumed an inflectional form, but
without losing the trace of their originally distinct existence, as
in Mongol and the majority of existing languages. 3. A period of
amalgamation, in which the language becomes purely inflectional, as
in Latin and Greek. 4. A period of analysis, in which inflections
fall off and get displaced by separate words, auxiliaries,
prepositions, &c., as in English.[237]
That languages exist in each of these conditions is undeniable,
but that they represent an historical sequence is an inference
which may well be disputed. The common _à priori_ notion that
complexity is a proof of development is, as we have already seen,
entirely erroneous; since the languages of American savages and
central Africans are surprising in their grammatical richness,
and the bald monosyllabic Chinese is yet an adequate organ for a
developed civilisation. The logical order is not the same as the
historical. It is the opinion of M. Renan that each branch of
languages was, from the first, pervaded by one dominant idea, which
was due to the genius of the race by which it was produced, and
that, from this idea, all further changes directly derive their
origin. The entire language existed implicitly in its primitive
stage, just as a bud contains entire every essential part of the
full-grown flower. Languages once monosyllabic, for instance, have,
he maintains, always continued so, and although some languages
of the trans-Gangetic peninsula have effected a real progress in
the direction of grammatical polysyllabism, yet an abyss still
separates them from the languages which are truly grammatical,--an
abyss which, he thinks, never has been and never can be bridged
over.
But we shall be better able to enter on these most important
considerations when we have glanced at the _certain_ results
respecting the classification of languages which have been at
present established by modern philology.
Two families of languages, embracing a large and widely-separated
number of the spoken languages of the globe, have now been
distinctly recognised and clearly defined. These are the
Indo-European, and the Semitic. The remaining languages, which are
non-Semitic and non-Arian, have been recently included under the
general name Turanian, and the high authority of Baron Bunsen and
Prof. Max Müller has secured for this name a wide acceptation. We
shall see hereafter that the semblance of unity in these languages,
which is assumed by the adoption of this name, has been disputed
by some of the ablest philologists, and at any rate the languages
of the so-called Turanian family have far less real claim to the
ties of mutual relationship than the members of the Semitic and
Indo-European families.
I. Of these families, the noblest and most widely spread is the
Indo-European, or as it is now more generally called, the Arian
family. Neither of these names is entirely[238] unobjectionable,
though either of them is preferable to the term Indo-Germanic,
which is now abandoned as wholly inaccurate. The name Indo-European
marks the geographical extent of these languages, but it is
inconvenient, and not quite wide enough. The name Arian was given
them because the ancestors of the people who spoke them are
supposed to have called themselves “Arya,”[239] or nobly-born.
This name is now generally adopted, and M. Pictet, one of the
profoundest of modern comparative philologists, has called his
most recent work, “Les Origines Indo-Européennes ou les Aryas
Primitifs.” But although this term Arya is of frequent occurrence
in the later Sanskrit literature, and was also familiar to the
Persians, the traces of it among the other branches of the race
are few and dubious; they are but very “_faint_[240] echoes,” if
echoes at all, “of a name which once sounded through the valleys
of the Himâlaya.” Still it is not likely that this name will now
be superseded, as Rask’s term Japhetic involves an unwarrantable
assumption; and the name Pataric (derived from Patar, the Sanskrit
“_pitar_,” a father), which has been recently suggested,[241] is
not likely to gain ground.
The Arian family comprises eight divisions, the Hindu, the Persian,
Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Sclavonic, Teutonic, and Celtic; of these
it is uncertain whether the Celtic or the Sanskrit represents the
oldest phase, but it is known that all of them are the daughters
of a primeval form of language which has now ceased to exist, but
which was spoken by a yet-undivided race at a period when Sanskrit
and Greek had, as yet, only an implicit existence. “It is,” says
M. Renan,[242] “the noblest conquest of comparative philology to
have enabled us to cast a bold glance over this primitive Arian
period, when the whole germ of the world’s civilisation was
concentrated in one straight ray. Just as the Romance dialects
are all derived from a language which was once spoken by a small
tribe on the banks of the Tiber; so the Indo-European languages
presuppose a language spoken in a very narrow district. What
motive, for instance, could have induced all Indo-European nations
to derive the name of ‘father’ from the root ‘pa’ and the suffix
‘tri’ or ‘tar,’ if this word, in its complete shape, had not formed
part of the vocabulary of the primitive Arians? What motive,
above all, could have induced them, after their departure, to
derive the name of ‘daughter’ from a notion so special as that of
_milking_[243] (Sanskrit _duhitri_, θυγάτηρ, dochter, &c.), if this
word had not deduced the reason for its form in the manners of an
ancient pastoral family?” It is from considerations such as these
that we prove the great fact of the Indo-European unity,--the New
World now thrown open to modern scholarship. “That the Sanskrit,
the ancient language of India, the very[244] existence of which
was unknown to the Greeks and Romans before Alexander, and the
sound of which had never reached a European ear till the close of
the last century, that this language should be a scion of the same
stem, whose branches overshadow the civilised world of Europe, no
one would have ventured to affirm before the rise of comparative
philology. It was the generally received opinion that if Greek,
Latin, and German came from the east, they must be derived from
the Hebrew,--an opinion for which, at the present day, not a
single advocate could be found,[245] while formerly to disbelieve
it would have been tantamount to heresy. No authority could have
been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army that their gods
and their hero-ancestors were the same as those of King Porus, or
to convince the English soldier that the same blood was running in
his veins, as in the veins of the dark Bengalese. And yet there is
not an English jury now-a-days, which, after examining the hoary
documents of language, would reject the claims of a common descent
and a legitimate relationship between Hindu, Greek, and Teuton.
Many words still live in India and in England that witnessed the
first separation of the northern and southern Arians, and these
are witnesses not to be shaken by any cross-examination. Though
the historian may shake his head, though the physiologist may
doubt, and the poet scorn the idea, all must yield before the facts
furnished by language. There was a time when the ancestors of
the Celts, the Germans, the Danes, the Greeks, the Italians, the
Persians, and Hindus, were living beneath the same roof, separate
from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races.”
Comparative philology enables us to form a very probable conjecture
respecting the cradle of the Arian race, and even to draw in
outline a picture of their primitive civilisation. We know that
this race was not indigenous in India. M. Lassen has proved that it
entered India from[246] the north as an aristocratic and conquering
nation, distinguished by its fair complexion from the swarthier
aborigines; and a crowd of linguistic inferences converge into a
proof that it sprang from the mountain-cradle of Imäus, from which
neighbourhood it seems likely that the Shemites also derived their
origin.
The traditions of the Arians, as well as the facts of their
language, point to Bactriana, as the region in which they first
appeared; central in position, temperate in climate, rich in the
metals always found in mountainous countries, resembling Europe in
its flora and fauna, and equally removed from tropical luxuriance
and northern poverty, no other country could be found more
perfectly suited for the peaceable development of the noble family
which was destined to mould the character of the world.
The Arians did not appear till late in the world’s history. “The
Achæmenid empire, which is the first great conquering Arian
empire, is contemporary with a period when the descendants of
Ham had already lost all excellence, and when China had long
arrived at that degree of administrative absorption of which the
_Tcheou-li_ affords an astonishing picture, and which has so near
a resemblance to absolute decrepitude. Brilliant civilisations,
powerful kings, organised empires, already existed in the world
at a period when our ancestors were still a race of poor and
ignorant peasants. And yet it was these austere patriarchs who, in
the midst of their chaste and obedient families, thanks to their
pride, their cultivation of right, and their noble self-respect,
laid the foundation of the future. Their thoughts, their terms,
were destined to become the law of the moral and intellectual
world. They created those eternal words, which, with many changing
shades of meaning, were destined to become ‘honour,’[247] ‘virtue,’
‘duty.’”
In speaking thus of the apparition of a race or a language, we only
mean the time at which man awoke to reflection and consciousness.
The origin of language is not _necessarily_ identical (considered
scientifically) with the origin of mankind. The circumstances and
conditions under which man first appeared on the face of the world
is a subject for the research of the physiologist, rather than
the philologist, and it is more than doubtful whether the most
earnest inquiries will ever be able to draw aside the thick veil
which hides the dawn of human life. In endeavouring to derive from
the facts of language some conjecture as to the nucleus around
which it grew, and the primitive condition of the races with whose
distinctive genius it is indelibly stamped, we are not pretending
to throw any light on the original appearance of the fathers of
mankind.
II. Second in importance, although earlier in historical
development, stands the great SEMITIC family of languages. Formerly
they were called by the general name of oriental languages, and
Eichhorn was, we believe, the first to give them their present
designation. The name is, however, defective, since many people
who spoke Semitic languages (as for instance the Phœnicians)
were descended, according to Gen. x., from Ham, and several
mentioned in that chapter as descendants of Shem (for instance,
the Elamites), did _not_ speak a Semitic language. But it is now
generally agreed that the sense of this document is geographical,
not ethnographical, and that the name of Shem is a general term
to describe the central zone of the earth. Were we to name these
languages, on the analogy of the word Indo-European, from their
extreme terms, we must call them Syro-Arabian. Leibnitz suggested
the name Arabic, but this would be to use an objectionable
synecdoche, and, on the whole, the term Semitic involves
no inconvenient consequences if it be considered as purely
conventional.[248]
The Semitic languages have been destined to exercise a stupendous
influence over the religious thought of mankind. Almost unconscious
of science and philosophy, this theocratic race has devoted itself
to the expression of religious instincts and intuitions,--in one
word, to the establishment of Monotheism. The three most widely
spread and enduring forms of belief originated in the bosom of
this family. They were essentially the people of God, and to them
belong, _par excellence_, the psalm, and the proverb, and the
prophecy,--the words of the wise, and their dark sayings upon
the harp. Clear but narrow in their conceptions, marked by their
subjective character, and capable of understanding unity but not
multiplicity; they lacked alike the lofty spiritualism of India
and Germany, the keen sense of perfect beauty which was the legacy
of Greece to the new Latin nations, and the profound yet delicate
sensibility which is the dominant mark of the Celtic peoples. And
yet neither India nor Greece alone could have taught the world the
great lesson which was connected by the Semitic race with their
most imperious instincts, that there is but one God, and that
religion is something more than a relative conception. Destitute of
that restless spirit of inquiry which has led the sister-race to
explore every nook of the universe and every secret of the mind,
the highest attainment of Semitic research is to declare that the
increase of knowledge is the increase of sorrow, and that the
praise and service of God is the sole end and aim of life. It was
a great lesson which the world could ill have spared, and it more
than atoned for the absence of research, of imagination, of art,
of military organisation, of public spirit, of political life: it
more than atones even for an egotistic poetry and a defective
conception of morality and duty.
The Semitic languages partake of the characteristics of that race
whose thoughts they embodied. They are simple and rigid, metallic
rather than fluid; physical and sensuous in their character,
deficient in abstraction, and almost incapable of metaphysical
accuracy. The roots are triliteral in form and so few in number
that their meanings are generally vague, being in fact a series of
metaphorical applications of some sensible perception. They are
deficient in style and in perspective; they are, as Ewald observes,
lyric and poetic, rather than oratorical and epic; they are the
best means of showing us the primitive tendencies of language; they
may be compared to the utterances of a fair and intelligent infancy
retained in a manhood which has not fulfilled the brilliant promise
of its early days.
The Semitic family has three main branches--viz., the Aramaic,
divided into two dialects, Syriac and Chaldee; the Hebrew, with
which is connected the Carthaginian and Phœnician, and the Arabic.
Besides these the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Assyrian
and the Berber dialects are now considered to have a Semitic
character, such at least is the conclusion arrived at by those
whose authority is of the highest importance--viz., Champollion and
Bunsen in the case of Egyptian, MM. Lassen and Eugène Burnouf,
Dr. Hincks and Sir H. Rawlinson in the case of Assyrian, and Prof.
F. Newman in the case of the Berber dialects.[249] It is admitted,
however, that the people speaking these languages were the cognate
rather than the agnate descendants of Shem; and it must not be
overlooked, that the conclusion which would rank these languages as
indubitably Semitic is rejected by philologists so celebrated as
MM. Pott, Ewald, Wenrich, and Renan.[250]
III. All languages which belong to neither of these two great
families have been classed together under the name of the TURANIAN,
NOMADIC, or ALLOPHYLIAN family,[251] which “comprises all
languages spoken in Asia or Europe, not included under the Arian
and Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and
its dialects.”
The chief labourers in the field of Turanian philology were Rask,
Klaproth, Schott, and Castren; but even M. Müller, one of the
main authorities for the classification of the various branches
of language which occupy this wide range (_e.g._, the Tungusic,
Mongolic, Turkic, Samoiedic, and Finnic), candidly admits that
the characteristic marks of union ascertained for this immense
variety of languages, “are _as yet very vague and general_, if
compared with the definite ties of relationship which severally
unite the Semitic and the Arian.” He argues, however, that this
is exactly what we should have expected, _à priori_, in the case
of Nomadic languages spoken over an area so vast; languages which
have never been the instruments of political organisation, which
have no history in the past and no destiny in the future, and which
never had any literature to give fixity to their acknowledged
unsettledness. Though the “Turanian” languages occupy by far
the largest portion of the earth (viz., all but India, Arabia,
Asia-Minor and Europe), there is not a single positive principle,
except perhaps agglutination, which can be proved to pervade them
all.[252]
It is impossible here to examine the arguments on which the
unity of this family has been considered to be _approximately_
established, while it is admitted that this unity does not
admit of any proof so strong and decisive as in the case of the
Indo-European and Semitic families. Those who seek the evidence
will find it stated, at full length, and with great eloquence and
ability, by Prof. Max Müller, in his “Survey of Languages,” and
also in Baron Bunsen’s “Outlines.” Suffice it here to say, that to
many the vast group of Tartaro-Finnic languages still appear to be
purely sporadic, and to have no common character except such as is
involved in their being neither Arian nor Semitic, _i.e._, in the
_purely negative trait_ of an absence of certain development. Under
these circumstances, we think that for the present it would be far
better to call these languages by the _purely negative name_,
Allophylian,[253]--a name which involves no hypothesis, and which
has the advantage of being the simple assertion of a fact.
But even supposing that we unhesitatingly admit a postulate so
large as that required of us, by the supposition that the Nomad
languages may be united into one family, which has points of
affinity with the dialects of Africa and America, and even with
Chinese, the further and more important question still remains;
Are there any points of osculation between the languages of these
three great distinct families? Is there any evidence in the present
state of philology sufficiently strong to induce a scientific
belief in the primitive unity of human language, and therefore of
the human race? The answer to that question must be found in the
next chapter, and I need only premise, that it is here treated
as a question of pure science, and is entirely separated from
its theological bearings. The question before us is not “must
we believe in the unity of the human race?” but “does philology
furnish any proofs or presumptions of the unity of the human race?”